I Was A Teenage Dungeon Master

A few blogs ago I referred to my shady past as a role playing games fanatic. I feel that it is now sufficiently far in the past that I can speak out about it.

Sufficiently far in the past and – I should add – sufficiently rehabilitated.

The world has come on a long way from believing that Dungeons and Dragons promoted Satanism – see Tom Hanks’ 1982 movie debut “Mazes and Monsters” for details.

It has even made it through the assumption that anybody who engages in such activities is a sad, lonely spree-killer in waiting who will never have sex with a human partner – thanks in large part to the triumph over the nerds over popular culture. The internet and video games have, in some way, made my wasted adolescence acceptable – nay, even avant-garde – in glorious retrospect.

Now, the weekends my friends and I squandered pretending to be wizards – in our own heads, FFS – or moving little lead men around bedroom floors in completely heavily carpet-distorted “battles” is deemed evidence of our “old skool” credentials rather than of our blatant social ineptitude and weirdness. 

Hell, we were in it long before every town had a Games Workshop. We had to get to Nottingham if we wanted goblins to paint.

I could have spent those five or six years learning something useful. Like how to speak to girls. Or how to enjoy physical exercise.

Or becoming an expert in anything – ANYTHING – other than the fighting statistics of imaginary monsters or lists of magic spells.

So I am not celebrating any après-la-lettre cultural vindication. Even if it's ok to like dragons now thanks to Game of Thrones, it was certainly NOT ok to like dragons back in the early 1990s. 

I still regard that period of my life as a very poor use of my finite lifetime. That’s not to say I didn’t have fun – I just had no appreciation of what other kinds of fun were out there.

Anyway, back to the title of the blog. Unless you were playing D&D – or rather Advanced D&D, because D&D was for thickos – the referee was a gamesmaster. I ran our group’s AD&D campaign though, so I was – formally – the dungeon master.

At the time, that was not a funny name to us. It denoted this guy:

Not this guy:

Being the dungeon master meant that I had to come up with the stories and challenges and whatnot, while my friends played characters in the world I had dreamed up – barbarians, clerics, assassins etc.

In retrospect, I can’t figure out why we just kept buying more and more of these different games – so as to play the same basic “swords and sorcery” scenario under yet another set of rules.

It’s always swords: anything involving guns had to confront the problem that getting shot usually results in swift death (or at best, immediate incapacitation) no matter how many experience points you have.

That’s why sci-fi is best suited to wargaming rather than role playing – because it doesn’t immediately mean you have to go home (or outdoors) if your little space marines or chaos squats in exo armour die in droves.

At least I got out in good time, thanks to the greater attractions offered by underage drinking and paid employment. It’s a slippery slope – one day you’re a teenage dungeon master, the next you’re a middle-aged English Civil War re-enactor. 

Seven Pieces of Folk Wisdom Debunked (that will blow your mind)

You must excuse my recent lack of blogging. I have mostly been working in the medium of Facebook status updates of late.

Today, I want to debunk, puncture and lampoon some bits of folk wisdom, which people continue to say, despite being manifestly and demonstrably untrue.

Why? I dunno. Attention maybe?

Muscle is heavier than fat

I have comforted myself with this for years. Whenever I start an exercise regime, and the immediate results are weight gain – I reassure myself that this is the reason.

It may be true for the same volumes of the two substances (look it up yourself – what do you think I am? Wikipedia?) but my problem is not a giant rubber ring of muscle around my abdomen.

He won’t get there any faster

I don’t know if real people actually say this or if it’s just something that old women in sitcoms say when someone overtakes them.

This is just wrong. All other things being equal, he will get there faster - because he’s going faster. There might be traffic lights ahead, but if he goes really fast, he’ll get through them before they go red.

Bullies are really cowards

Now, I know that this one has an educational or moralistic purpose behind it – but again, it’s just not true. Picking on someone weaker than oneself does not necessarily mean that you’re a coward.

It might mean you’re an arsehole, but that’s not the same as cowardice.

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger

Derived - I’m told - from Nietzsche, this has been debased into what “Loose Women” might deem philosophy. That is, it is bollocks that people repeat without thinking how completely false it is.

A life-threatening illness or injury will almost always leave you more susceptible to future ill-health. Nobody increases their resistance to bullets by shooting themselves.

Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight

While I have found that a red sky at night does indeed usually presage pleasant weather the following day, I think it is probably ascribing an unfairly restricted set of interests and concerns to shepherds to say – without qualification – that not getting rained on is a source of “delight”.

Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning

Shepherds are often up and out before sunrise and are therefore fully aware of weather conditions. No warning that comes too late is worthy of the name.

Also, very few people are shepherds. The amount of folk wisdom that applies directly to them is entirely disproportionate to their social, economic or demographic significance.

Don’t play with it or it’ll fall off

This is actually true.